1 John 4:6 (AMP)
6 We are [children] of God. Whoever is learning to know God [progressively to perceive, recognize, and understand God by observation and experience, and to get an ever-clearer knowledge of Him] listens to us; and he who is not of God does not listen or pay attention to us. By this we know (recognize) the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error.
Error is wandering or deviation from the right course or standard system of things, it is the irregularity of action, a mistake or inaccuracy of action or speech.
An error could also be departing or deviation from the truth; it is when we purposely falsify information.
We all make mistakes in life; some errors could be costly and deadly, but others could just be a garden variety mistake.
As the scripture says we know the spirit of truth just as well as we know, acknowledge, accept, and practice the spirit of error sometimes.
The spirit of error is so many spirits all over the world right now. The spirit of error is even operational in the church right now, Christians all over the world manipulate the scriptures to make it favourable for whatever occasion, season and audience that suits them.
We live in a generation and society that measures the authenticity of a minister by their popularity and the crowd in their audience but that is not necessarily the sign of truth or error. Neither can we trust that if a man is a good public speaker and can hold the attention of an audience, means that he must be teaching the truth and not walking in error.
And we think that if a man quotes a lot of Scriptures, accurately, then they must know the truth.
Almost everyone tends to think that a man who has high academic and educational credentials, knows, and tell the truth!
Wrong!
Because according to 1 john 4:6 the spirit of truth is the Holy Ghost and the only one who can guide us into all truth, that means if you’re not born again and filled with the Holy Ghost with the spirit of discernment you might be operating in the spirit of error.
We operate daily in the spirit of error in several areas of life, most obvious is pride and lack of trust in God’s promises such as exhibited by David in 2 Samuel 24:1-35, God would move to bring out what is inside of us in certain circumstances just so we can see ourselves as we appear to others, proud, self-boasting and lacking in trust, just like David.
The spirit of error leads one to wrong decisions, wrong places, dishonest practices, and wrong actions because a wrong motive is one of the reasons we get into error.
The spirit of error could be so ingrained that we fail to exercise discernment that should allow us to differentiate between what is truth and lie as seen with Ahab in 1 Kings 22:13-23, even though God had placed a death sentence on Ahab in 1 king 20, Ahab had another chance here to redeem himself but because he was already operating under the spirit of error, false confidence and pride, he was willing to ignore the spirit of truth and accept the lies of the prophet instigated by the spirit of error.
When we allow the light of God to lead us, we would be directed in our teaching, testimonies and preaching in accordance with the word of God. Isaiah 8:20.
The spirit of error is the spirit that comes from Satan and seduces us into error, but the spirit of truth is the Spirit that comes from God and teaches truth.
Shalom